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NB-IoT finds it harder than expected to dislodge a LoRa/LTE-M double act

The imminent death of Sigfox and LoRa at the hands of cellular NB-IoT has been much exaggerated. There are two important points in the favor of unlicensed spectrum solutions for LPWANs (low power wide area networks) – they have an existing market presence, and they enable non-spectrum owners to play in the growing market for digital machine-to-machine (M2M) services, including in smart cities. Delays and dilemmas in NB-IoT commercialization – seen last week in Orange’s decision to defocus on the standard for now – point to a multi-access picture persisting in LPWANs, with the power shifting to platforms that can support seamless interoperability between different cellular and non-cellular solutions (see previous item). When 3GPP finalized its own LTE-based LPWAN standards…